Listen to Your Mother gives 'motherhood a microphone' in San Francisco

KIM THOMPSON STEEL didn't like the term mommy blogger even if that's what she was blogging about. But at her first BlogHer conference three years ago, she sat in on an open mike organized by fellow mommy blogger Ann Imig.

Women like her were talking about mothering. It was powerful.

"It was one of the greatest events I think I've ever gone to at a conference. It was just amazing," the Mill Valley resident says.

Mom to a then 7-year-old daughter, Thompson Steel loved the idea of "giving motherhood a microphone." So when Imig put out a call a few months later to expand Listen To Your Mother (LTYM), a live-reading series the Madison, Wisc., resident founded in 2009, Steel was eager to bring it to the Bay Area. Fellow mommy blogger Kirsten Nicholson Patel of Hillsborough agreed to co-produce it, and when their application was approved they were on their way.

On May 3, the third annual Listen To Your Mother San Francisco will take the stage at Brava Theater Center with four Marin readers among the 11 sharing their reflections on moms — just in time for Mother's Day.

"It's really for anyone who has a story to share about motherhood," Thompson Steel says.

And who doesn't have a story about motherhood — whether about their own mother or their own experience as a mom or even the decision on whether to become a mother or not?

"Everybody knows one, has one, is one. Mothers are sort of a touchstone, good and bad, positive and negative. There're just so many stories to tell," says Thompson Steel, a former Industrial Light and Magic animator. "One of the reasons I got involved and stayed involved is that there's that 'me, too,' that head-nodding confirmation that we're all in the same boat."

LTYM was in just 10 cities in 2012 when she and Patel put on the first show here; now it's in 32 cities.

"The stories cover such a range of mother experiences that they're speaking for everyone. They're universal," says Steven Friedman of San Rafael, who is the only man this year participating.

Friedman's essay is about his mother's use of stories as a form of emotional blackmail. It's admittedly not one of the lighter pieces that will be read that night.

"It's sad because although she's only 77, she has severe Alzheimer's so she doesn't even know who anyone is anymore. There's still some stories I want to know," says Friedman, 55, the widowed father of a 16-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter.

Karen Lynch's essay tells the story of having to overcome her parenting-weary husband's reluctance to adopt a daughter from China, their third child. She's now 12 years old.

"I wrote it two years ago and when I read it it makes me cry every time because it still feels like it happened a week ago," says Lynch, who lives in Novato and published her first book, "Good Cop, Bad Daughter: Memoirs of an Unlikely Police Officer," this year.

Lynch wanted to participate in LTYM in part because she loves the idea of giving a voice to mothering.

"There's a lot of wisdom in the experience of motherhood," Lynch, 55, says. "Motherhood is an experience every single one of us has something to say about, whether male or female, whether we're mothers or not, because we all had a mother or maybe even not a mother."

Would-be LTYM participants don't have to be professional writers. What matters more, Thompson Steel says, is that their story connects with others.

"You want a story everyone can relate to, even if it hasn't been their experience. And we're looking for a balance of humorous and touching and uplifting stories from all parts of the community," she says. "That's what it's all about. It's storytelling."

For Joy Latimer of Mill Valley, who read an essay in 2012 and now is the show's stage manager, it's more than just storytelling — it's a sense of belonging.

"Take a group of strangers, encourage them to tell their stories and see how it opens them up to community and sisterhood," she writes on her blog. "It takes an enormous amount of courage to be vulnerable. Some of the stories are breathtaking in their bravery. You can watch hearts burst open."